Boxing day started a little frustrating for me, if you hadn't guessed by my post yesterday (and the fact that some people seem to need more than a few hours of shut-eye before venturing out for the day. I mean, really, why can't you go for three days on eight hours of sleep??) it took forever for things to get going!
Anyway, so once we got everyone up and moving around, we went to the Free Walking Tour. Only, we missed the tour by about ten minutes, so we toured ourselves. One of the guys from the hostel had showed us a few places that they would be taking us on the tour, so we went there ourselves. It wasn't a very nice or clear day out yesterday (and it isn't today either) so we skipped the Citadel where you can get a view of the whole city. No point in looking out over Pest from the highest point in Buda when you're not going to see more than you can from The Castle. We got pictures of Parliament and The Castle, and the Chain Bridge which we walked across, and a few of the buildings and statues. We saw the Opera House, but we didn't bother taking a tour. We tried to go to Terror House (which is a museum of two of the worst periods in Hungarian history- the Nazi regime and the Communist period) but the museum is closed on Mondays. We'll do that later today.
A Lamp Post. :)
The Basilica
Again
...
A statue of a police man.. clearly had to get a photo with him!
I think this was a University.. I could be wrong.
A statue by the University
First picture of The Chain Bridge
Pretty sure this is Mathias Church in Buda
The Chain Bridge with The Castle behind it
Lion!
The Duna River between Buda and Pest (they are now one city, but this river divides the halves and they are still lightly referred to by their former names)
The Citadell in Buda
Part of The Castle
The Chain Bridge from the Buda side.
Me!
A Statue at The Castle
The Parliament Buildings in Pest. I believe it's the largest in Europe, but I could be wrong.
Buda.
Another shot of Buda (notice that Pest is flat, and Buda is hilly)
Another statue- they are very proud of their hunting days!
Woof. :)
The University all lit up!
The Chain Bridge all lit up!
This is a wall of chains outside the Terror House. Its a museum of horrors based on the Hungarian experience of the Nazi and Soviet regimes. We didn't get to go, but I really wanted to!
We decided to try a recommended little place for some traditional Goulash.
It. Was. Delicious!
For those you who don't know what Goulash is, it is a tasty beef and vegetable soup type dish. The guy who was serving us in the small restaurant tried to tell us it was spicy. Maybe to Hungarians paprika is spicy, but this Goulash wasn't spicy at all. One of the girls, we'll call her Alaska, asked what the difference was between Goulash and Beef Stew. His reactions was: "Well... Everything." She asked about the Fish soup and he then proceeded to try to explain that the fish soup is pureed. "You won't find any carrots swimming around in there". Really? Swimming? HAHA! Such a funny moment in my life. We were all dying with laughter on the inside while trying not to offend the man or embarrass him by laughing out loud, lest he decide to really spice our Goulash or add some extra flavouring of his own. Speaking of spice, we also had Mulled Wine. It is also a tradition in Hungary, and reminds me of something similar to hot cider. It has a few spices in it, but isn't spicy either, and it is essentially hot wine with some fruit in it (imagine hot sangria with some spice).
After dinner, it was back to the hostel to find out what everyone else was up to. It turns out that there was another night of drinking in store. Cheap drinks too. We got directions to the place and decided to chill for a bit and play some Foosball before going out. Brazi's vs. Canadians. (The Brazi's schooled us, but they did it nicely... and at least the one guy kept his shirt on this time!)
Out at the bar there was karaoke going on... enough said.
I didn't sing, of course, but I sang along while other people did. We got a bit of a dance party going on, and in true Bethalona fashion, I managed to allude a few of the drunken gentlemen to whom I must have looked as drunk as they were (otherwise I can't see why they would think I'd be down to make out with them in a dark corner).
On the way home the group of us decide to stop at MacDonald's. Double cheeseburgers at 3a.m. are the same in every country, and the fries ended far sooner than they should have. I definitely did not have enough to eat for a day of walking and dancing yesterday.
Once back at the hostel, none of us were tired yet, so we stayed up chillin in the lounge area. There was a bit of a water war going on and some of us got drenched (it's okay, we got the others back just as bad!). There was also an M&M war, but I stayed out of that one (I do not believe in cruelty against M&M's or wastefulness when it comes to those tasty treats). Finally around 5a.m. the party wound down and we all went to bed.
I've been up this morning since 8:30 (yes, three hours of sleep) so we'll see how the day goes. We haven't done anything yet, but we're planning on visiting the Thermal Baths and walking around City Park.We'll try to make it to the Terror House and the Synagogue. ... Yes, you read that right, I 'm going to a Synagogue. My friend is Jewish and he'd like to see it, so we'll go. It's the second largest Synagogue in the world, so I guess if I'm going to go to a Synagogue, this would be the one to go to!
Well, I suppose I should get off the computer and hope that the girls we're meeting come back from the train station soon!
Buenos dias!
Nothing wrong with going to see a synagogue. Hope you have fun today visiting and seeing everything.
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